Pope Leo XIV condemned capital punishment as incompatible with human dignity in a Vatican-released video message timed with the Trump administration’s move to expand federal execution methods to include firing squads and a reinstated lethal-injection protocol using pentobarbital.
The U.S. Justice Department said Friday it is expanding the federal execution protocol to allow additional methods, including the firing squad, as the Trump administration moves to revive and speed up federal capital punishment.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department is also readopting a single-drug lethal injection protocol using pentobarbital—an approach used during President Donald Trump’s first term. The Biden administration removed pentobarbital from the federal protocol after a government review raised concerns about the risk of unnecessary pain and suffering. In announcing the change, the Justice Department argued the drug can render a person unconscious quickly enough to avoid those concerns.
The federal government had not previously included the firing squad in its execution protocols, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. At the state level, Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah allow firing squads in certain circumstances, state laws and national tracking groups say.
Hours after the Justice Department announcement, the Vatican published the text of a prerecorded video message from Pope Leo XIV to participants at DePaul University in Chicago marking the 15th anniversary of Illinois’ decision to abolish the death penalty. In the message, Leo reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s opposition to capital punishment.
“We affirm that the dignity of the person is not lost even after very serious crimes are committed,” Leo said.
Leo’s intervention came as he has increasingly clashed with the Trump administration on questions of war and human rights. Earlier in the week, Leo condemned capital punishment during a wide-ranging, in-flight press conference while returning to Rome from a trip to Africa.
Only three defendants remain on federal death row after former President Joe Biden commuted 37 federal death sentences to life in prison, according to U.S. officials and court records. They include Dylann Roof, convicted for the 2015 Mother Emanuel AME Church killings in Charleston, South Carolina; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, convicted for the 2018 attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
The Justice Department said it is seeking to expand the use of capital punishment beyond the remaining federal death-row cases. Federal officials have said the administration has authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants.
Executions nationwide increased in 2025 to 47, up from 25 in 2024, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Florida accounted for 19 of the 2025 executions, the group reported.
